


Ripping the Gray Shroud

by sunshineinthestorm



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, fyi there's cursing if that bothers you, post 3-b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 04:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5115233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshineinthestorm/pseuds/sunshineinthestorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Allison's death, colors are duller and everything hurts more. Lydia isn't the same, no matter how much she pretends to be. But then again, neither is Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ripping the Gray Shroud

It’s been two weeks since Allison — two weeks since Aiden, too — and Lydia doesn’t sleep. Doesn’t eat either. Her mom doesn’t know because Lydia’s pretty sure they haven’t eaten a meal together since Lydia’s last birthday. Anyway, it’s irrelevant because her mom couldn’t make her start eating again even if she did know. Not after what’s happened. Not now that Lydia’s shattered into pieces.

She goes back to school the day after the funeral, though. She does her homework and aces her tests and smiles at freshmen and pretends that everything is fine. The rest of the pack does the same, even Scott. They’re so good at pretending that even Lydia forgets sometimes. She forgets that other people cared about Allison and miss her too. After all, Lydia hurts enough for all of them.

Then one day, Stiles drops his pencil in class.

On its own, that wouldn’t be enough to catch Lydia’s attention. He probably drops something in some class or another at least once a day. But this time, Stiles doesn’t pick it up — doesn’t even try. Instead, he grips the sides of his English notebook and keeps his eyes fixed on the text.

Lydia frowns and picks his pencil up for him before poking him with the eraser head. (They haven’t touched since Aiden’s death, and Lydia isn’t sure if that’s ever going to change.) “Stiles,” she hisses. “ _Stiles_. You dropped this.”

His eyes don’t waver from the notebook. “Okay. You can just leave it on my desk.”

“It’ll just roll off again.”

“Then let it.”

Worry sprouts in the space between her heart and ribcage. “Why?”

Slowly, his eyes drift shut. “I just remembered,” he croaks. “Allison lent me that pencil last month. I never returned it.”

Lydia’s shoulders tense. He hasn’t said Allison’s name since the funeral. Lydia hasn’t either. “I… I’m sure she didn’t mind.”

“Yeah.” The notebook starts shaking. “That’s kind of the problem.” He stands up abruptly, his chair banging into Scott’s desk, and leaves without an explanation.

Lydia only hesitates for five seconds before following him.

She finds him in the boys’ locker room (why do they always end up in the boys’ locker room?), looking at everything and nothing. He can’t seem to stop the shudder wracking his body.

“Why are you here?” he asks without looking up. 

“You didn’t look okay.” Lydia hesitates. “You’re not okay.”

Stiles rests his head on his knees. “None of us is okay.”

“Yeah,” she concedes, “but you’re more obvious about it.”

He makes a noise that’s obviously supposed to be a laugh — only it’s not a laugh so much as a gasp for air. “What gave me away?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The not-sleeping. The not-eating. The notebook-shaking. The refusal to pick up your pencil.”

He gets up suddenly and starts walking, pacing back and forth while Lydia stands still, afraid to interrupt him when he’s actually talking to her for once. “I don’t deserve it.” He stops and stares at a locker — his locker, if Lydia remembers correctly, although the way he looks at it makes it seem more like a prison. “I don’t deserve anything.”

“Stiles, it’s not your fault.” 

The words sound empty to her own ears, and Stiles is smart too — he’s always been just as smart as she is. He isn’t even close to fooled. “Isn’t it, though?” His pacing resumes. “I mean, let’s look at the evidence. I didn’t close the door in my mind. I didn’t stop the nogitsune from possessing me. In fact, I allowed him to possess me  _over_ and  _over_. I let him possess me to save Malia’s life, and all I got for that was two more deaths.” 

He whirls around and looks at her with eyes so much darker than their usual amber brown. (Everything in Lydia’s life is darker now.) “I remember what I did, Lydia. I  _enjoyed_  it. I  _wanted_ to do the things I did. And now I’m back, and it’s like there’s a gray shroud between me and the rest of the world — like everyone is keeping their distance, and I don’t blame them for it — and the gray shroud is my fault, too, because I’m so  _angry_  all the fucking time. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t pissed off at the world, Lydia, and it’s really not okay because the nogitsune kind of liked being pissed off at the world. What if we didn’t get rid of him, Lydia? What if he’s still in some fucked-up part of my brain and I can’t get him out? What if — I mean, hell, Lydia, I came out of a fucking pile of cloth strips. What if I’m not even  _real_?”

Lydia knows her heart is racing, knows her eyes are wide and anxious, knows she’s pressed against a locker on the other side of the aisle and is absolutely terrified, but she still feels guilty when Stiles registers her body language and stumbles backwards, slamming into his own locker hard enough to give himself a concussion. “Shit,” he breathes. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Lydia. I didn’t — I didn’t mean to tell you that. I’m so sorry. Just… you see what I mean? Don’t try to tell me that this isn’t all my fault.”

Then he stumbles out of the room, leaving Lydia to stare at a new body-sized dent in his metal locker.

* * *

That afternoon, Lydia’s doorbell rings as she’s finishing her chemistry homework. Groaning, tugging her sweatshirt into place, smoothing back strands of hair that have come loose from her bun, Lydia opens the door. 

It’s Stiles. 

Lydia almost closes the door in his face — but it’s Stiles, so instead she steps back and crosses her arms. He gets the hint. “Maybe I should have called first,” he admits, shuffling in her doorway. “I probably should have called first. I just needed to apologize again. I… I shouldn’t have said all those things out loud.”

“No,” she says. “No, you needed to. You can’t keep thoughts like that to yourself.”

“What about you?”

She frowns. “What about me?”

“Lydia.” Stiles steps inside her house, and Lydia doesn’t stop him. The door stays open, his pale skin framed by the darkness of night. “Don’t try to play dumb. You aren’t sleeping or eating either.”

She stiffens. “That’s different.”

“Different how?”

“Alli—” She gulps. Dares to say it. “Allison was my best friend.”

“I know.” The words are a confession drifting into the night. “And I killed her.”

She looks down at her clasped hands. “That wasn’t you.”

“But I already told you, it was my fault—”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t your fault. I said it wasn’t  _you_. You didn’t kidnap me. You didn’t take that sword and… and…”

She doesn’t finish. She doesn’t have to.

“But I ruined our pack,” Stiles blurts out. “Lydia, you know it’s true. We’re all ruined now, and it’s because of me. I just—” 

“ _Stop it!_ ” Lydia reaches forward and flicks the door shut behind Stiles, forcing him to stand under the light of her foyer’s chandelier. “You can’t do this to yourself! You can’t pin all this on yourself. You think you have a monopoly on guilt, or anger, or fear? I feel all those things too. Damn it, Stiles, I wake up every morning fucking  _terrified_.”

“Oh.” Stiles takes a step forward and grabs her clasped hands, pulling them to his chest like that will help somehow. (And for some reason, it kind of does.) “What are you scared of?”

“You.”

Immediately, Stiles lets go of her hands and stumbles back, lips parted slightly. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he demands. “Fuck, why didn’t I think about this? Of course you’re scared of me. Lydia, I… I’ll leave right now—”

“What? No!” Without really thinking about it, Lydia runs around him and presses herself against the door to keep him from leaving. “I’m not scared of you because I think you’re still the nogitsune. We trapped him, Stiles. He’s not a threat. He’s not hiding in some fucked-up region of your brain. You’re okay.”

“Then why are you afraid of me?”

“Because I realized that you’re human! You’re not like Scott or Isaac. You can’t heal like they can. You’re just a human, and so is — so  _was_ Allison, and I’ve already lost her, and it made me realize that I could lose you in an instant too, and I couldn’t stand that.”

Stiles’s hands are quivering, so he shoves them into the pockets of his red hoodie. “Why? Why does that bother you so much?”

“Because it’s  _you_ , Stiles.” Lydia takes a deep breath and stores it deep in her lungs. She could stop there. She could tell Stiles to save the psychoanalysis and get out of her house. But since Allison, every tick of her clock’s second hand is a warning that life is transient, that a monster could break in at any time and kill them both without giving Lydia a chance to speak. And with that constant reminder, Lydia is starting to think now is as good a time as any to tell Stiles the truth.

 “Because it’s you,” she repeats. “Because I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified that something might ruin you. And also my timing sucks.”

“Wait. What?”

_Tick, tock, tick, tock._  Oh, God, she doesn’t have time for this. “Damn it, Stiles, I’m in love with you! Didn’t you hear me?”

“I guess?” He blinks a few times and then shakes his head. “Still not sure I believe you though?”

Lydia groans. “Believe this?” And then she kisses him.

For five whole seconds, Stiles doesn’t respond, and Lydia suddenly worries that she’s missed her window. He hasn’t shown any hints of loving her in almost six months, after all — maybe he’s moved on. At that thought, she almost pulls away. But then carefully and enthusiastically and hard and soft and gentle and violent all at once, Stiles kisses her back, and Lydia is sure again.

“Okay,” Stiles chokes out when they step away just far enough that only their foreheads touch. “I believe that.”

Lydia kind of feels like crying, so she smiles instead. “Good.” 

“But—”

“But what?”

“But why does your timing suck?”

“I already told you. You’re  _human_ , Stiles. I don’t know how I’d continue to function if you died on me too.” She pauses. “And also…”

“What else?” Stiles demands, caught somewhere between desperation and heartbreak. “Is it because you don’t want to date another monster?” He picks at a loose string on the sleeve of his hoodie. “I don’t blame you.”

“Stiles, we’re all monsters,” Lydia says, and suddenly she’s just so so tired of the conversation cycling endlessly but circumventing any momentous decisions. “I’m a monster too. That doesn’t scare me anymore.”

“Then why—”

“Because Allison’s dead!” She gulps. “Allison’s dead, and it’s partially your fault and partially mine and partially everyone else’s, and my whole world’s falling apart without her. It’s like… it’s like I’m only half a person without her here, Stiles. And it’s kind of like you are too.”

“You’re not wrong.” They stand there in awkward silence for a while, Lydia still stuck between Stiles and the door. But then Stiles glances at her sideways. “But you don’t hate me for what happened?”

“Stiles, I already told you I love you. I think hating you would be counterproductive.”

He smiles. Acutally  _smiles_ , and suddenly Lydia Martin has hope for the future of the universe. “Then maybe — sometime — well.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “If you’re half a person, and I’m half a person, maybe together… maybe together we can make a whole.”

Lydia thinks about that for a moment, and then she lets herself kiss Stiles again. 

“All right,” she says. “A whole person? I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at stilestilikeslydia.tumblr.com!


End file.
